The war was at last over! Rather than being the end of strife and discontent it was the beginning…… first the prices of everything went up, then the unhappiness of the people with their personal status quos increased and there was general disenchantment everywhere. The talk of independent India had resurfaced and the movement was begun in a small way.
For us children though it was life as usual! Our school functioned normally. One class after another, new books and smell of question papers, new class teachers, sometimes new students and teachers. Sometimes in life some incidents adhere to the memory –one day a new Hindi teacher came from Bihar and asked us to write with reed pens. These were not available in the market so he sold them to us at four annas, which was a lot in those days. He spoke only in Hindi, which I used to understand, maybe because it was similar to Oriya in many ways.
Once my father came home and found that I am conversing with a Kabuliwala (These were men from the north west of India most probably from Afghanistan who came to do business in dry fruits) negotiating fruit prices, when Bapa (My father) asked me how I was able to understand his language ,I had no reply. Hindi books I could read without difficulty since the alphabets were in my memory from the trivasi.
Another memorable event of my life was riding a cycle, which was fascinating to me as it could move on two wheels. Since by then I was pretty tall I used a veranda to climb the cycle and cycle off, not like my brothers hopping from a pin attached to the back axle, or by cross riding like the girls!
Then came the red letter year of 1947 when India became independent, I was in eighth class. This was proper high school, with different enthralling subjects like Science, additional Mathematics, and Sanskrit. As usual I was awful in History but being brilliant in Geography I used to pass , as they were marked as one subject!
I continued roaming around alone, but only during holidays. This enhanced the process of self learning, gave me a lot of insight and knowledge but did not encourage me in indulging in outdoor games. My eldest brother however had devised many games for us to play at home. Some of the incidents that are clear even now are- during one such game my younger brother injured his eye, which later was diagnosed as detachment of retina (he went on to become one of the best retina specialists in India!); Once during raja, while swinging on special swings made for the festival I fell and cut my armpit severely, which needed 21 stitches ( for children it is a matter of pride to have such a big cut!); during one Ganesh puja, I fell from a culvert from a height of about 10 feet. More serious accidents were suffered by my two elder brothers during cycling and playing. The irony was that though my father was a doctor, during most accidents he was never around, he was mostly on tours! My mother must have seen to all these aspects of life.
I know that amongst all the brothers I was the favorite of my father. When he went on tours he used to take me along. I used to be treated royally by the Asst Surgeon of the hospitals, which was a matter of envy to others. The servants of the house were also deferential to me due to this. My uncle and auntie also treated me with a lot of affection, may be to please my father or maybe because I was more outgoing than others. While driving in the car I was curious to know the functions of different controls of the car, and used to ask my father all sort of questions. Whatever he used to tell me were registered in my brain and when he was busy in the inspection of the hospitals, I used to drive the car forward and backwards but not on the main roads.
My eldest sister was in college at Cuttack and used to come home only during holidays. She used to describe the place as hot with mosquitoes, so it was never a very attractive place for us! In comparison Keonjhar was cool in summer and very cold in winters and we loved it!
When we read the history books or any novels based on the war and independence years no one remembers to write about the normal day to day lives (except maybe R.K.Narayan) everyone writes about the intensity of the movement and the passion that everyone had for it. Would India have got her independence and continued on the road of success without the thousands of men and women who continued working so that the people had a semblance of normalcy in their lives?
The world should focus more on this rather the actually political movement while discussing this unique process of achieving freedom.
No comments:
Post a Comment